Twitter: Why You Should Be Using It and How

Twitter currently has about 15-20 million users and is continuing to grow rapidly each month. Starting as a simple messaging vehicle Twitter has now become one of the more common forms of communication for B2B, B2C and C2C. Twitter averages almost 40 million Tweets per day, and according to a survey conducted in May 2009, 51% of Twitter user respondents were between 35 and 54 years of age.

Millions of people actively use Twitter as a regular form of communication or medium for news, information and entertainment. In addition to the widespread usage of Twitter, the platform acts as a fantastic way to directly communicate with prospects and clients, and vice versa. Once an attentive audience is developed Twitter becomes a low cost marketing tool for communicating business related information to attain new clients and generate more revenue.

The first step is to set up a Twitter account and customize the Twitter page for consistent branding. Now it’s time to start tweeting! Much like every other aspect of social media, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to how you should run your Twitter account. However, there were some themes that held true in every conversation:

-Twitter has a 140 character maximum for tweets, so tweets need to be a single thought, link, or question
-Your tweets should fit with your brand’s voice.
-Your tweets should have a personal voice that meshes well with the brand voice
-Twitter is meant to be genuine and in real time, information you tweet needs to be current

Just keep in mind that Twitter, like all social media, is a great way to further engage customers, open up new conversations and keep information flowing.

One of the most overlook benefits of Twitter is the ability to do some search engine optimization. As the search engines continue to push forward with real-time search results and social search results, Twitter becomes increasingly important. So what are you waiting for, start tweeting!

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